Randolph Linn is a 52 year old truck driver from St. Joseph, Indiana who passed by an Islamic Center somewhat often during his work. One day, in the process of drinking 45 beers in seven hours, he was convinced by watching Fox News that all Muslims are terrorists. He set off for the Islamic Center with a loaded revolver, he went inside, and he lit a fire in one of their prayer rooms. He was arrested.
Of course, the probable Republican spin doctor’s response to this will be to blame the beer rather than the propaganda this man was subjected to. He was drunk, which is a little like being mentally ill or having Asperger’s Syndrome.
But how do we explain Erick Erickson’s truthful observation that last night the House Republicans proved that they are “more loyal to the Americans for Tax Reform pledge than Americans for Tax Reform itself is”? Grover Norquist gave them a pass to vote on John Boehner’s Plan B bill, and they took a pass on the pass.
Can we safely say that the majority of the House Republican caucus has been so indoctrinated into their own propaganda that they no longer realize that it is just bullshit designed to help rich people get their way? Do they all now actually believe that raising taxes reduces revenues? Do they believe that increasing income inequality increases consumer demand and promotes economic growth? Do they actually believe that government spending doesn’t create any jobs even when the government is paying people to work?
With the likely exception of their Speaker, the House Republicans can’t point to their blood-alcohol level as an excuse.
The debate about chained CPI is important, but it seems small and tangential after last night’s mutiny. It should be clearer now that the biggest problem facing the country is not the budget deficit or the strength or generosity of our entitlement programs. The biggest problem is that your average elected Republican is just as susceptible to Fox News right-wing bullshit as Randolph Winn was when he lit an Islamic Center on fire because he had been watching Fox News and got “riled up.”
It is extremely dangerous to have a party this detached from reality.
At this point, I am really concerned that we are heading into uncharted waters. Where the goal of a large part of one party is to destroy our ability to exercise the basic and essential practices of a representative democracy. Their singular aim seems to be anarchy.
Yes, this is where we are headed, but we have been in these uncharted waters for some time now.
It’s hard to see how sanity can be returned to the insane. The Tea Party now appear to be its own (out of control) party, a party without leaders. But I wonder how many non-TP Repubs are willing to confront them, to try controlling them, and vote against them. After last night it appears that there is no GOP majority that can “control” the TPers in the sense of voting them down. So the TPers are effectively “in control”, whatever the actual breakdown of the various GOP factions may be.
Perhaps Booman will write a post trying to identify the existing factions of the GOoP now.
Boner has no basis to remain as Speaker, and by all traditional analysis must resign. We’ll see what today brings. But he may be staying on as a fig leaf to maintain the fiction that the Headless Chicken Party has some “leader”, which it clearly does not.
It will be interesting to see how foreign capitols react to this revelation of the GOoP as a headless chicken party. It will be dismaying for the rest of the world to finally understand that the Repub party has gone insane and is going to openly and intentionally paralyze the gub’mint of the largest and most important economy in the world. Boner the Drunk is now a world historical figure, haha!
booman,
I argued with you at length yesterday about your “breaking the fever” view, and the last twenty-four hours have done a lot to vindicate you. This is very reassuring.
But seriously, who is the President supposed to be negotiating with? Boner can’t control his caucus and tries to dump shit on the Prez every evening after talks don’t work out because he simply can’t deliver anything. Is there anyone who can deliver the part of the house GOP required to pass ANYTHING?
Charle P. Pierce:
(Emphasis mine.)
Boehner represents the people who had been running the con, the con that made high-end tax rates into a moral crusade. They didn’t count on the marks seizing control of the con and getting their own elected.
What is to be done? The more level-headed plutocrats could stop supporting the GOP and try to build a new party, but then the last election cycle showed that it doesn’t take all that many billionaires like Adelson, Peterson, and the Koch brothers, to keep the crusade financed.
Who knew that Citizens United would be the instrument of the GOP’s destruction?
Yes, BooMan, TEA Party Republicans are Hofferian true believers. They don’t realize that the “philosopy” is just BS cover for theft. Well maybe “theft” is a little hyperbolic for a doctrine that boils down to the divine right of owners.
I don’t think they are true believers, or at least not in anything except their own minor league grift, at least the ones in Congress. I think they are petty grifters in it for the $ that are coming from the Koch bros et. al. They don’t need the republican party. All the Palins, the I-am-not-a-witch, Walsh the deadbeat dad, etc. Most turn out to have some major weakness (deadbeat dad, paid for mistress’s abortion – that guy in Tenn) if not crime (Walker, taking $ donated to veterans families?) through which the Koch et al. money controls them. I also think that’s how the Koch bros recruits their candidates.
I also wanted to comment on Booman’s description of the House Republican caucus has being “so indoctrinated into their own propaganda that they no longer realize that it is just bullshit designed to help rich people get their way?”
It was the words “no longer” that stuck out for me. I think a lot of these guys, particularly the class of 2010, NEVER DID know that. They are populists. Fox News populists.
The Tea Party started as a grass roots movement among Ron Paul and survivalist types, in which the total number of demonstrators was probably less than 200. The first such demonstration was led by a guy named Trevor Leach in upstate NY at the end of January 2009. It was taken over by the Koch Brothers et al. literally about three weeks later. That takeover dates precisely to Rick Santelli’s televised and by no means spontaneous rant on Feb. 19, 2009.
Those Republican Tea Partiers who do not realize or perhaps do not care who or what controls the TP are those who don’t understand the concept of co-optation. As far as they are concerned, they are sticking to their own beliefs and that’s all that matters.
The comparatively few that do care about being co-opted are still survivalists and Paulists. And most of the Taa Party voters are just plain RW corporate republicans.
http://robalini.blogspot.com/2009/03/backstabber-is-rick-santelli-high-on.html
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/cnn-joins-great-american-tea-party-express
Indeed – and for the first time, the majority of Americans agree.
“Repub Party too extreme…”
Only NOW they figure that out, eh? After an election where their standard bearer openly wanted more tax cuts and 20% lower rates. Great thinking, America…
Nor has the long term effect of the Great Repub Gerrymander of 2010 been understood by even 10% of the citizenry. Hell, it’s not even mentioned on corporate teevee “news”.
and any of this is a surprise?
really?
Actually, Riky, yeah. For most people, it IS a surprise.
It is hard to imagine the depth of self-delusion that is inherent in the RW mindset today. These people are living in an alternative universe where it is always 2010. Thinking people, even thinking RW people, are trying to make assumptions on crazy people. You can’t doit. They are crazy – insane – looney – out of touch with reality.
My wife spends a lot of time trying to understand this, and failing miseably because she just doesn’t understand that you can’t apply reason to insanity.
I read yesterday that Norquist’s pass was outweighed by the heavy pressure put on Congressmen by other conservative groups that play a big role in financing campaigns. And those groups claim that minds were changed. Maybe Boehner’s undercount of the vote wasn’t as incomprehensible as it seems.
I know people with Asperger’s and it’s neither a mental illness nor like being drunk. It’s a neurological condition characterized by “poor communication skills, obsessive or repetitive routines, and physical clumsiness”. I know a lot of kids with some degree of Asperger’s, and quite a few adults.
Just sayin’. There are better analogs.
.
Especially after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre and the killer perhaps suffered from some form of “mental illness”. When it is released next year, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 is expected to combine the subgroups of Asperger’s syndrome, pervasive developmental delay (PDD) and autistic disorder into one broad category–autism spectrum disorder, or ASD.
Sorry I wasn’t clear enough that I was aping a GOP spin doctor.
He was drunk, which is a little like being mentally ill or having Asperger’s Syndrome.
Say what?